Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday February 15, 2012 @12:03PM
from the unreleased-jobs-dubstep-record-out-next-week dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Recognizing Steve Jobs's immense contribution to music, he was the recipient of the Grammy Trustees Award at the Grammy's this past Sunday. The award is handed out annually to 'individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording.'"
Eddy Cue, head of iTunes, accepted the Grammy in place of Jobs.

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

Today: "Yeah, Steve screwed us, but at least he didn't post the video on YouTube."

2050: "The MPAA and RIAA led the fight to make media cheaper and more accessible worldwide."

Come to think of it, the survivors of the Confederate States of America went through the same mental gymnastics.

iTunes really was a saviour for the music industry, stupidly they clung to the belief their old business model was the only way. Now that they're all rolling in bigger piles of money than before, they want to hold the Kill Switch on our internet because every single one of is is either a Pirate or Pirate in Potentia.

Today: "Yeah, Steve screwed us, but at least he didn't post the video on YouTube."

2050: "The MPAA and RIAA led the fight to make media cheaper and more accessible worldwide."

Come to think of it, the survivors of the Confederate States of America went through the same mental gymnastics.

This is OT but one hilarious example is the town of Enterprise, AL which lauded the efforts of the Boll Weevil for providing the shift away from cotton (a troublesome and often low-value crop) toward more diverse crops including peanuts. Mind you, George Washington Carver is generally credited with the popularization of peanut farming across the south in the early 20th century. Oh, he's black? Nope, he had nothing to do with it, it was the pest that destroyed several years of cotton harvests that did it... Better thank that little bug!

Not only that but you can buy the song you want instead of the whole album in most cases. Twenty years ago you had to buy the whole album if a single was not released. Of course there are some songs that are restricted to the album but the vast majority can be purchased as singles. Also independent artists have a global distribution channel that they didn't have before.

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

The Planet Money radio show (also a podcast) has had a lot of content lately about where money comes/goes in the music industry. Did you know, for example, that in 2011 Katy Perry's content (her "Teenage Dream" cd and associated singles) netted the recording studio that holds the contract about $8 million (out of about $45 million in sales) and sales via iTunes netted Apple, Inc about $8 million (from about $25M in sales)... So yes, they love him and they hate him, he won just as much profit from the work

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

The Planet Money radio show (also a podcast) has had a lot of content lately about where money comes/goes in the music industry. Did you know, for example, that in 2011 Katy Perry's content (her "Teenage Dream" cd and associated singles) netted the recording studio that holds the contract about $8 million (out of about $45 million in sales) and sales via iTunes netted Apple, Inc about $8 million (from about $25M in sales)... So yes, they love him and they hate him, he won just as much profit from the work, by having a glorified web site to sell it on, as the recording studio did that put the whole thing together. The bottom line is though, that without iTunes in place those downloads could have very well not profited the recording industry *at all*...

Someone is overlooking something, somewhere. The sale of physical recordings passes through distributors, transportation & logisitics and then to the retailer. All of them got a cut, so iTunes simply removed the physical and time to market aspects. One copy becomes n copies when downloaded.. no need to forcast and take a risk on how many pressings are needed, etc.

The point was that it must severely chap the ass of the record executives who have to sit there and think "We could be sitting on twice as much profit right now if we only had the foresight to be the ones with a web site to sell music downloads on"... Of course, iTunes distribution is only a part of the iThing ecosystem (which is a big part of what drives sales) so it's not entirely a 1:1 comparison, but it does point out how little the recording industry really has control over any more (and they are very

Yes, but the quoted figure for the the labels is $8 million out of $45 million. That's $37 million that went to "Other than labels" A lot more than the $8 million iTunes takes is left out of their pockets. They don't even take a majority of the money.

I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago

Then you were paying too much for your albums. While I couldn't get *EVERY* CD there, I got the vast vast majority of my music collection from BMG, averaging between $5-6 per CD, even including their ridiculous "shipping" charges. I just waited for the regularly occurring "sales", and bought CDs only then. (I got a much smaller proportion from Columbia House, but even they were cheaper than buying every CD at $18.99

The istore may not have been the first digital music store but they have made the biggest impact in changing the business model. You can thank Apple for being able to buy the one decent song on a CD for an affordable price.

The iPod also has made it easier for people to have all of their favorites at their fingertips. Before that there were some crappy, poorly designed mp3 players by creative and that's about it. Your other option before ipod were walkman style cassette players.

It's easy to be cynical about the music business, but in this case recognition is deserved.

I wonder if they'll say TPB made the biggest impact in changing the business model?
Back, so long ago when the ipod came out Archos were making much better spec units with ogg and other bits. But they just don't have the marketing or designer wank Apple can muster. I've just had a look at their website and apples stuff looks so much better. I'm sure Archos are all a bit better spec and cheaper - but who cares. Both still better than creative and that's about it.

>The iPod also has made it easier for people to have all of their favorites at their fingertips. Before that there were some crappy, poorly designed mp3 players by creative and that's about it. Your other option before ipod were walkman style cassette players.

Ummm you missed portable cd players which I've used since 1992. Tape players were already on way out but they chugged along the portable cd players untill cd burners were affordable.

You are dead wrong about the iPod and its predecessors. I despise the iPod and blame its popularity for the death of simple drag-and-drop, file/folder interfaces on mp3 players. Instead of just being able to scroll through my files like it's a hard disk, I have to contend with forced categories and mp3s getting lost because of mislabeling and on and on. Not all of us want to be treated like children by our music players.

Like Steve Jobs and Apple or not... but if you can't see that iTunes totally changed how a huge number of people get and access their music, it's probably because you refuse to.

iTunes was the first widespread way that people could legally buy (or rip) digital music, and quickly managed to sell billions of songs. And the iPod radically changed how people accessed their music -- yes, there had been MP3 players, but in terms of making it widely usable by non-tech people. nothing else made quite the same impact. And, the iTunes software itself gives a nice, consistent way of dealing with this stuff. And, it also lets yo handle other media types through the exact same interface, and doesn't even require you to know what an MP3 is to use it.

Other than Napster (which got shut down because it was largely being used to pirate songs), name me one way you can get digital music that has had anywhere near the impact of iTunes?

And, yes, I will admit I've had iPods and iTunes since about 2001. But my mother-in-law is making noises about getting an iPod -- because even she understands what it is and what it's for. Do you think she'd know WTF a Zune is? I highly doubt it. And, at the time I chose to go the iPod/iTunes route, Windows Media Player was absolute crap -- I haven't touched it since, so I have no idea what it's like now.

Sure, there are players out there which have some features that a few hard-core geeks want... but quite honestly, I have only ever known one person who needed Ogg Vorbis support and I can't think of any other features that might be missing from the iPod. (Well, I hear people whine you can't easily copy songs off the iPod, but that's because Apple didn't want to get sued by the music industry, and because iTunes keeps extra information about songs in its database)

I can see exactly why they gave him this award. I mean, if Paris Hilton could use an iPod, how hard could it be? Geeks don't like easy to use devices, but the rest of the consumer world does.

I am not particularly fond of Apple as a company. Their strong arm tactics drive me crazy, and the slavish fan base constantly going on about the innovation they supposedly do (with their devices). But...

The true innovation that Apple has done though had nothing to do with their devices, but the platforms they created when they figured out how to handle the iTunes store, the App store, and those annoying walled gardens we all love to love and love to hate. For all the bad, it really has changed how people think about software and media distribution, and opened up opportunities to a lot of people, when the old distribution channels were only open to the chosen few.

Their devices are not innovative, they are just the most polished and accessible devices pretty much available. No wonder they are so love/hate on Slashdot, but the rest of the world loves em. Combined with one of the most effective distribution channels ever made, it's a pretty remarkable combo for consumers.

Their devices are not innovative, they are just the most polished and accessible devices pretty much available. No wonder they are so love/hate on Slashdot, but the rest of the world loves em. Combined with one of the most effective distribution channels ever made, it's a pretty remarkable combo for consumers.

I think that many people just confuse "invention" and "innovation":

Wikipedia: "Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself."

Apple might not have invented very much, but Apple surely has innovated a lot, also with devices.

Innovation: "the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society"

The original iPod was most definitely innovative. Marketing aside, three technical reasons why it succeeded:- Firewire, so transferring 5GB of data would take minutes, not hours. AFAIK no other player was using even USB2 yet.- smallest (physical) HDD available at the time.- uncomplicated user interface driven by scroll wheel with minimal buttons

Changing the way a car showroom looks doesn't involve contributing to cars.

Being the first to come up with a wide spread model for having a car showroom, and having any commercial success with it, however, does. I don't believe there were any "car showrooms" before that.

I honestly can't name a single digital music store which existed before iTunes. And I doubt that anything which predated iTunes still exists. Apple also managed to get the big labels to sign up when everyone was trying to figure out how to shut down Napster et al.

As I said, before the iPod there were MP3 players... but the overall impact of iPods and iTunes vastly outstrips any of those. Most of them aren't even in business any more.

I'll be the first to admit that Apple doesn't invent technology out of the blue that nobody has ever seen... but what they do is to provide a much better integrated platform that non-technical people can use without fear. It just works, and doesn't do any of that weird technology stuff that people don't want to get involved with.

Name me a single player/software combination that has had nearly as much impact on the market. Because I can't think of any... the Zune was, comparatively, a joke.

Other than the idiot who got the Zune logo tattooed on his arm and later regretted it, I honestly don't know a single person who has owned one of them. Creative products disappeared a long time ago as far as I know. My wife's old Sony player which used proprietary formats and software wasn't wide-spread. Sure, you can buy cheap ass USB players that you can drag files onto and play, but you're stuck with Media Player or whatever. It certainly doesn't offer you a store or a nice interface.

Apple has sold something like 300 million iPods to date... who is in second place? The answer, nobody cares enough to find out.

And, nobody is saying that iTunes caused good music to come into existence. The award is for the impact iTunes had on the music industry -- the iTunes store has sold 10 billion songs and, for many people, is likely the only digital music store they've ever used or heard of. Old people who barely use computers know what an iPod is and what iTunes is. My 65+ year old mother in law knows what it is and is pondering an iPod. If you can get

This most likely because unlike other devices that basically relied on appearing as a USB storage device, the iPod needed to go via iTunes for just about everything. Seems this and the AAC wrapper was enough to get RIAA to play ball. I guess they thought it would make the task of transferring those files elsewhere difficult.

>but if you can't see that iTunes totally changed how a huge number of people get and access their music, it's probably because you refuse to.

Not sure where you grew up but even in my semi secluded city there was a lot of music discovery and trading though cassette tapes. Usually with in days everyone in my school had a tape copy of any new album that was released. The only thing that iTunes changes was you could spend your money from a chair in front of your computer. but long before that there was tons

Also, it doesn't/didn't play divx or xvid (not exactly obscure formats and very useful on airplanes)

I would argue that is not correct.

mp4 is a much more useful format for airplanes - not because of the size of the file (though it is also compact) but because there is general hardware support for decoding - which means MUCH longer battery life, the most important factor for using a device on a plane.

Ugh. I hardly know what Ogg is, but I can immediately think of a couple features the iPod didn't have when I was looking for an mp3 player. The first is a custom equalizer (ipod only has presets), and the second is a selection of 3rd party music library managers. I've never actually owned an ipod so correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard from many people that you basically have to use itunes with it (WMP not required for most others).

I just checked my iPod, and it has presets in the EQ, but not custom setting

I started running itunes in XP back in about 2000/2001, and I run it in Vista now -- initially it was because I thought WMP was crap, and I had been through several really annoying MP3 players that just didn't work the way I wanted. Initially, I ripped my MP3s from my FreeBSD box and mounted them from a shared drive onto my Windows machine with Samba. (And, at the time, I only grudgingly owned a Windows machine having been a UNI

You're definitely some kind of "Apple guy". Maybe I shouldn't have said mac.

Sure, because I've been using iPods for so long I've been through several. I continue to use them because they work for what I want them to do.

When the iPad came out, I bought one because (contrary to what some people claim), it was the first consumer tablet that was widely available in my lifetime. It also had the added benefit that I could plug it into my iTunes and load stuff onto it within minutes of opening the box. So every

Apparently you with your long winded replies which try to convince me that you're not the Apple guy you make yourself out to be; even though you claim that there wouldn't be anything wrong with that if you were.

LOL, truth be told, I'm long winded in general.:-P

You asked a couple of questions about their products, I answered them.

Seeing an "irrational hate for Apple" is all in your head.

Read the rest of this thread, or any article about Apple... it's far from in my head. (And I'm not accusing you of irrat

Yeah, nothing the Music Industry does through the Grammys surprises me. I gave up on those awards years ago because the awards are more about directing public attention in the direction the industry wants people to look, rather than giving awards based upon actual merit. At least the Oscars still is democratic enough to give awards to people who really do deserve them.. at least, more often than the Grammys do.

That said... who knows, maybe the Oscars will disappoint and hand Steve Jobs a special posthumo

Come on, have you ever heard Tull in concert? When they do Beltaine it rocks. So, maybe it isn't exactly Master of Puppets but who can understand those Metallica boys anyway. No sir, real metal has lyrics you can understand and relate to, not the barking of dogs followed by shrill high pitched warbling about driving silver stakes through tongues to keep them from blaspheme.

Come on, have you ever heard Tull in concert? When they do Beltaine it rocks. So, maybe it isn't exactly Master of Puppets but who can understand those Metallica boys anyway. No sir, real metal has lyrics you can understand and relate to, not the barking of dogs followed by shrill high pitched warbling about driving silver stakes through tongues to keep them from blaspheme.

And here I was thinking Ian Anderson had a solid gold flute, which was considerably more heavy than standar flutes....

The award is not for "contributions to the recording industry", it's for "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording."

Steve Jobs' contributions to the "recording industry" may well have been negative or damaging, but they have nothing to do with the field of recording. They were entirely to do with content distribution, which is totally different.

Well, I AM a sound engineer, and not only are the "field of recording" and the "recording industry" completely interconnected, but particularly in the context of the Grammys the distinction you are making does not exist. To the Grammys, the "field of recording" IS the "recording industry". Perhaps that fact is objectionable, but that has nothing to do with anyone's feelings about Steve Jobs in particular. He fits the award just fine.

That would be a terrible choice then. I don't recall any Grammys going out to other people that created music authoring programs. That includes the programs that professionals use to author their recordings.

From indie music, yes, but then they're not involved in the Grammys. I don't understand what mindset you have to be in where you'll spend the time to watch the Grammys but not spend time discovering the truckloads of great music that the Grammy awards completely ignore (and thus show how stupid and useless the Grammys are).

Agree. The Grammys are a complete sham. It's about promoting the industry and trying to convice the kiddies the music they listen to is award winning stuff.

I'm finding World Music is very rich and there's no end to it. Thanks to the interwebs we now can find recordings of it, where once you had to be there.

I would have thought it's obvious: No Apple Music, no Beatles. No Beatles, no Sgt Pepper, diminished role for Abbey Road Studios, it kinda snowballs from there.

You could say they're recognizing the wrong guy, and that they should have instead recognized Wozniak. But after his murder by John Hinckley, any such recognition would be posthum-- hey waitaminute, you're right!! WTF?!

You say: "Oh, so his Grammy-worthy contribution to music was creating a fucking store? Wow..."

Everyone knows that if Steve Jobs had not invented the digital music store, then everyone would have quit listening to music, and we would all be listen to talk radio by now, and the poor musicians would have to eek out a living by only getting paid for live performances. Never in the history of music have musicians been forced to do that.

I rather suspect AngryDeuce got that this was about iTunes. I agree this is stupid. Jobs did fantastic things for *commerce* related to music. Nothing for music, really.

I'd give one to the Guitar Hero people long before I'd give one to Jobs. They got millions of non-musicians playing fake instruments. Some of those, like me, were inspired to go try and buy the real thing. Some of those actually became good. I'm not one of them, but I know a couple.

Hold on there Cowboy. The music industry just isn't interested in people who can't afford music. Sharing? That's communism. Setting up an online store where teenagers can run their parent's credit cards without any hassle? That friend, is capitalism, and that's what this award is celebrating.

He didn't have anything to do with making music. He helped create the first wildly successful internet based digital media sales/distribution system.. But replace the music files with porn movies and the premise is the same.. He was selling access to files in a repository.. It had nothing to do with making music.

Yup, my favorite was Turtlenecks and Mistletoe but I really didn't care for Ye Old Yule Log of Personally-Identifiable Location.

This was a Grammy Trustees Award, not a Grammy Award. The Trustees Award goes out to “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording.”

And to think, Apple (under Jobs' first stint as CEO) taunted record companies with just one note [zot.org].

And for people who just don't get it... Grammys are awarded for contributions to the business of music as well as the art. Love it or hate it, iTunes was instrumental (lol) in forcing the record companies to adopt the digital downloads business model.

No one who has anything to do with itunes has any business accepting awards for anything.

Why, exactly? Or do you have nothing more to add than "because I said so"?

Have you sold millions of audio devices? Billions of songs? Made a product that's a household name? Genuinely changed how people buy and play their music? Have you ever even used iTunes? Or is this just the standard Slashdot pissing and moaning?

I bet you could walk into a retirement home, and ask for a show of hands who knows what an iPod is

These awards organizations are so politicized it no longer matters what their mission statements are. It's a popularity contest, namely in that they will give an award to whoever will make them the most popular, regardless of how much it tarnishes the organization.

iTunes may be a household name, but the award states "career in music" and "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording." Steve Jobs fails on both of those requirements. He may deserve an award of some technical nature for the field of access to purchase music, but iTunes does not merit a Grammy for Steve.

iTunes may be a household name, but the award states "career in music" and "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording." Steve Jobs fails on both of those requirements. He may deserve an award of some technical nature for the field of access to purchase music, but iTunes does not merit a Grammy for Steve.

It's not "career in music," it's "during their careers in music" which changes the context some.
In any event, looking at the effect Jobs had on the music industry, I'd say he was at least as deserving of the award as Dick Clark, Don Cornelius, and Walt Disney (previous recipients).

I assumed it was just the MAFIAA's admiration of His Steveness to develop a cult-like following literally willing to stand in line to overpay for product. Given that the MAFIAA takes about ninety cents of every dollar earned by an artist - then sues grandmothers to make up for that dime - he was cut from the same gruesome cloth as they.

Who would seriously dispute Jobs did things of great significance? The interesting question is whether the significant things he did were more positive or negative. I'm conflicted about the impact of iTunes and iTMS. They have challenged the powers that be in the recording industry and given customers more affordable access to DRM-free music, which is great. However, while challenging RIAA members' stranglehold on music distribution, Apple has become a powerful force in that space and succeeds in controllin

On several occasions in this article people have likened iTunes to a record store, followed by making a fart noise.

I don't understand it, either. Back in my day, before iTunes, if I heard a song on the radio I liked, I had to buy a delicate $20 compact disc with 10 other songs I didn't want so I could listen to it skip in the car. Apparently making it fun to enjoy music again and selling ten billion songs in the process isn't quite Grammy worthy.

Xoom instead of iPad, Droid instead of iPhone and Sansa instead of iPod.

Disregarding the rest of your post, I have to agree that Sansa makes pretty dang good portable music players. I have a Sansa Clip+ and even though the screen is nothing to brag about it does pretty much everything I want. It plays MP3, WMA, Vorbis (important to me), and even FLAC if you're stubborn enough to waste space with it. I got a 4GB model for around $40-50 (though they sell 8GB for a little bit more) and it's expandable with MicroSD card support. It even does FM radio so you can listen to crappy pop

When did workers receiving a salary 20% above regional average become "slaves"? Slaves are usually captured and work for nothing, not people who willingly leave their subsistence farming communities in order to make money for their families back home. See the difference?